NY education chief to appear at 16 Common Core forums
ALBANY
King's tour will take him to 16 stops across New York, including 12 appearances at public forums moderated by state lawmakers and another four that will be broadcast by PBS stations.
Venues and dates for the forums are still being finalized, but are set to be held in Rochester, Westchester County, Binghamton and Amherst, among other locations, according to the state Education Department. A televised forum will be hosted by WXXI in Rochester on Dec. 3, while a separate date will be scheduled in Binghamton.
"I want to have a respectful, direct and constructive dialogue with parents," King said in a statement. "More and smaller discussions will make sure there's a real opportunity for parents to be heard."
The announcement concluded a week in which King faced strong criticism from the state teacher's union and parent groups after he chose to cancel four forums sponsored by the New York State Parent Teacher Association.
King pulled out of those meetings after he faced a barrage of shouted criticism from parents and attendees at the PTA's first forum in Poughkeepsie last week. They expressed anger with the length of the public-comment period and the speed at which the state has implemented the Common Core standards.
The criticism peaked late in the week when two state lawmakers -- Assemblyman Tom Abinanti, D-Mt. Pleasant, Westchester County, and Nassau County Sen. Jack Martins, a Republican -- called on King to resign, with Abinanti accusing King of having "closed off all meaningful conversation with parents, educators, administrators and elected officials."
King had defended his decision to step away from the PTA events, which he says were "co-opted by special interests" by opponents of the state's education reforms. The meetings did not allow for a "constructive context for dialogue," he said Tuesday.
The state's announcement Friday came a day after the New York State United Teachers union and the Alliance for Quality Education, a group partially funded by the union, announced its own set of Common Core forums. They will be held in the Capital Region, Syracuse, western New York and on Long Island, though firm dates and locations were not immediately announced.
"Parents and educators need to be heard, not silenced," Billy Easton, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, said in a statement. "These forums will provide that opportunity."
Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the state Education Department's Board of Regents, said it's time to "tamp down the rhetoric and really dig in and see exactly what's going on."
"I think that along the way, any policy -- particularly one that implements a lot of change -- really makes people nervous," she said in a phone interview Friday with Gannett's Albany Bureau. "So believe me, I understand people being nervous about change and I take that very seriously."
Tisch continued: "On the other token, what I don't like is when the rhetoric becomes such that we talk past each other and that's what we have to avoid at all costs."
Harry Phillips, a member of the Board of Regents, said it's clear King made mistakes in his handling of the forum and its aftermath, but said the board has no plans to replace him.
Specifically, King should have left more time for public comments in Poughkeepsie and misused the term "special interests" while outlining his reasons for canceling the forums, Phillips said Friday.
"The commissioner made a few mistakes and he understands it. The board understands it," said Phillips, of Hartsdale, Westchester County. "He's a good, smart guy, and the Regents are not going to get rid of John King."
JCAMPBELL1@gannett.com